Chicago Tribune - 24.02.2020

Chicago Tribune|Arts+Entertainment|Section 4|Monday, February 24, 2020 3

The honeymoon contin-
ued between Beach Bunny
and its growing audience at
the group’s hometown
Metro show on Saturday,
with the Chicago pop band
giving fans early and new
alike plenty of reasons to
feel smitten. While the
sold-out concert served to
launch the tour in support
of the newly released debut
full-length “Honeymoon,”
the set was as much a well-
deserved victory lap as it
was a display of the young
band’s promise and reso-
nance.
Singer/songwriter/
guitarist Lili Trifilio first
began putting out solo
music under the Beach
Bunny moniker in 2015,
self-releasing lo-fi bedroom
recordings that earnestly
dealt in heartbreak. She
eventually recruited band-
mates to compete in a battle

of the bands, and the group

includes the adept instru-

mentalists Matt Henkels

(guitar), Jon Alvarado

(drums) and Anthony Vac-

caro (bass). Beach Bunny

didn’t win that competition,

but the group — resolved —

continued performing,

recording and building a

devoted fanbase.

Last year, “Prom Queen,”

the title track from the 2018

EP of the same name, went

viral. A takedown on im-

possible, unfair beauty

standards, the song has

amassed millions of

streams and made the

Billboard Hot Rocks chart.

Beach Bunny has played

Lollapalooza and Riot Fest,

and scored a spot on the

lineup for Coachella in

April, all before dropping a

debut album.

At Metro, the band show-

cased what makes it so

indelibly endearing. While

Trifilio’s open-hearted

lyrics addressed longing,

anguish, anxiety and self-

doubt, they were also

bathed in cathartic, shout-

along refrains and buoyant

melodies. Devoid of cyni-

cism, its youthful optimism

was feel-good, even when

picking up the shards of a

freshly broken heart.

They particularly ex-

celled in expressing the

in-between emotions that

plague the confusing mo-

ments between still crush-

ing-out and moving on.

Songs, including opener

“Promises,” “Cuffing Sea-

son” and “Rearview,” high-

lighted Trifilio’s tender,

lilting vocals as they

reached a crescendo along-

side the band’s building,

revved-up melodies and

rhythms as her voice rose to

a bellow to hone in on

where the pain still resides.

“Part of me still wants you /

Part of me wants to fall

asleep ... Part of me still

hatesyou” she belted on

“Promises,” as a mosh pit

broke out on the floor,

which continued through-

out the entirety of the hour-

long set. “You love me / I

love you / You don’t love me

anymore, I still do,” she

sang on “Rearview,” rising

to her toes for further em-

phasis.

Beach Bunny played

“Honeymoon” in sequence,

only skipping “Racetrack,”

the band’s confidence in its

new material giddily met by

a crowd that bounced,

surfed, sang along and

clung to every word. The

second half of the set was

rounded out with back

catalog favorites, such as

the vulnerable “6 Weeks”

and the exuberant “Boys.”

Beach Bunny closed the

night with “Prom Queen”

and the surging “Painkiller,”

a cathartic one-two punch

to cap off an exhilarating

set.

Althea Legaspi is a freelance

writer.

ct-arts@chicagotribune.

com

Twitter @chitribent

IN PERFORMANCE

Beach Bunny stays blissful,

sharp, endearing at Metro

By Althea Legaspi

Lili Trifilio leads Chicago band Beach Bunny during a sold-out show Saturday at Metro.

CHRIS SWEDA/CHICAGO TRIBUNE

“I was hoping there’d be

like a blizzard or some-

thing,” said comedian

Todd Barry Saturday night

in the opening moments of

his 65-minute set at Thalia

Hall, issuing a faux com-

plaint about the unusually

nice weather and how it

ruined his chance to start

the show with a solid

bad-weather rant along the

lines of: “Why do I always

have to play Chicago in

February?”

With a smooth voice

that would make a soft

rock DJ jealous, Barry —

who’s been performing

stand-up for 32 years —

delivered all of his material

in his signature silky dead-

pan that varies only in

volume, occasionally drop-

ping to a whisper or rising

to full volume in order to

punctuate a word or turn

of phrase. “I’ve got a Net-

flix special out, don’t know

if anyone’s seen it,” he said

earnestly near the start of

the show, before continu-

ing with a smirk: “Doesn’t

matter, because here’s the

first 45 minutes of it.”

While he did sprinkle a

few of the jokes from his

2017 special “Spicy Hon-

ey” throughout the night,

he also performed plenty

of new material and — as

has come to be expected

from a comedian who, in

2014, released a special

called “The Crowd Work

Tour” that set aside writ-

ten material and consisted

entirely of off-the-cuff

audience interactions — a

solid helping of crowd

work.

The majority of Barry’s

material sits somewhere

between standard stand-

up (setup/punchline — e.g.

“I’ve been trying to im-

prove my life — taking a

pilates class. It consists of

me and three women who

know how to do pilates”)

and brief stories (he con-

tinues by breaking down

the various exercises the

pilates instructors give him

vs. the women). But his act

doesn’t feature a through-

line or even much of an

attempt at tricky segues to

connect one bit to the next.

Instead, Barry employs

non-sequiturs as connec-

tive tissue, either offering

meta commentary on the

structure (or perceived

audience reaction) of a

given joke, or interjecting a

question to an audience

member, riffing for a bit

with them, and then jump-

ing back into his material

on a new topic, creating an

unexpected seamlessness

to a disconnected act.

Barry has frequently

been described as “low

energy,” and while the

term does fit with his calm

demeanor on stage, there’s

also an underlying sense of

tension and a constant

searching that permeates

his work. He somehow

manages to consistently

come across as both utterly

relaxed and completely on

edge. “You guys are a good

crowd. I feel very loose

tonight,” Barry said at one

point, gripping the mic in

one hand and the mic

stand in the other. “This is

me feeling loose, by the

way,” he added seriously.

The self-image Barry

presents on stage walks

the narrowest path be-

tween self-deprecating

and self-aggrandizing, in

one breath calling himself

the world’s greatest come-

dian and in the next

thanking audience mem-

bers for being at his show

by saying, “I appreciate

that you can’t afford Tim

and Eric tickets.” (Come-

dians Tim Heidecker and

Eric Wareheim were also

in town Saturday night,

playing the Chicago Thea-

tre.) At the end of the

night, Barry returned to

the stage for a brief en-

core, asking for another

round of applause for

opener Chelsea Hood,

before cutting the audi-

ence off with a reprimand:

“Alright, that’s enough. It’s

about me.”

Even the name of his

current “Stadium Tour”

captures this divide —

mocking his own level of

fame while downplaying

the impressiveness of

filling a venue like Thalia

Hall (at one point Barry

mentioned there were 550

people in the audience, a

not-insignificant crowd).

His 2017 book, “Thank

You for Coming to Hat-

tiesburg: One Comedian’s

Tour of Not-Quite-the-

Biggest Cities in the

World,” is a captivating

travelogue, in which Barry

obsesses over minutiae

and captures the ins and

outs of the life of a touring

comedian performing in

smaller venues in smaller

cities. While his “Stadium

Tour” might find him in

bigger venues and bigger

cities, he’s working with

the same straightforward

persona he’s cultured over

three decades of comedy:

the unassumingly down-

to-earth braggart celebrity

who you should be grate-

ful to see, even though he’s

not that famous.

Zach Freeman is a

freelance writer.

ct-arts@chicago

tribune.com

IN PERFORMANCE

Confessions, crowd

work and pilates

fill Todd Barry’s set

By Zach Freeman

Comedian Todd Barry,

shown here in 2016,

performed Saturday night

at Chicago’s Thalia Hall.

THEO WARGO/GETTY

The thing I miss the
most about Same Planet
Different World is the
name. Faced with the im-
mense challenge of con-
tinuing to run a conven-
tional repertory dance
company, director Joanna
Read reorganized Same
Planet as a pick-up group a
few years ago.
Recent productions have
mainly consisted of small
studio showings, with an
all-new roster of dancers
under the moniker Same
Planet Performance Proj-
ect. There are a lot of dif-
ferences between Same
Planet Different World and
Same Planet Performance
Project, but whatever she
calls it, Read somehow
keeps going.
That’s good for us. Read
is an underrated asset in
Chicago’s dance communi-
ty; she’s an immensely
talented choreographer
and attracts interesting
works to supplement those
she makes for her com-
pany.
It’s been nearly seven
years since Same Planet
performed at the Dance
Center, so the house was
justifiably packed Friday
night for two world pre-
mieres.
The evening opens with
“Ammonite,” by New York
choreographer Ivy Bald-
win, titled after pre-his-
toric mollusks that disap-
peared with the dinosaurs.
Ammonites share many of
the characteristics of ceph-
alopods (squid and octopus
being the most common
examples of those). So, if
you picture squid tentacles
poking out of a snail shell,
you get close to what am-
monites looked like.
There are several chore-
ographic nods to this title,
though it’s not so obvious
that you can look at “Am-
monite” and think, “yeah,
that’s definitely a mollusk.”

Yet, they spend large por-

tions of this piece in

hunched postures, mim-

icking the animal’s curvi-

linear shell. They often

gasp for air, with fists

against their chins and

elbows pointed upward,

until the quartet extends

their arms and softly waves

them overhead. In a long

solo near the beginning,

dancer Enid Smith, at

intervals, flicks a hand or

foot, snapping into balletic

shapes, gesturing her sub-

ject’s smooth exterior

punctuated by gangling

tentacles. Justin Jones’

sound score has all the

makings of a relaxation

tape, with layered loops of

what sounds like crickets,

wind, rain or ocean waves

— maybe white noise. Vin

Reed’s costumes—simple,

loose frocks of purply-hued

tulle and net-like lace —

seem like moss or seaweed

entangling their bodies.

Claiming no proficiency

in mollusks, I didn’t see

any of that until I Googled

the title. And I’m not sure

Baldwin even wants us to

draw direct parallels be-

tween extinct marine life

and “Ammonite.” Indeed,

many moments feel wholly

human. As Smith con-

cludes her solo, a black

curtain parts to reveal her

three castmates: Michelle

Giordanelli, Michael

O’Neill and Patrick Burns.

The gorgeous atmosphere

back there (created by

lighting designer Jacob

Snodgrass) is cooler, fluo-

rescent and more stringent.

It’s the same planet, but a

different world.

I wouldn’t say this quar-

tet does much in the way of

forging connections be-

tween its dancers. Perhaps

that extends to “Am-

monite” writ large, which

doesn’t allow us to get too

attached to it. It simply

ends, unceremoniously.

The larger idea in “Am-

monite” is the steady path

of decay in the natural

world, which does not

attach the same degree of

preciousness to birth, life,

sex and death as we hu-

mans do, despite culpabil-

ity in the precarious state

in which the planet finds

itself.

Read’s contribution to

the evening, titled “Bad

Bunny,” closes the pro-

gram. Initially, “Am-

monite” and “Bad Bunny”

lack contrast. Dancer Ear-

lyn Whitehead is added to

the same four dancers in

the previous work. The

sonic and visual landscapes

(by Erika Rickets and

Snodgrass, respectively),

and similarly shaped

sheaths by Reed don’t do

quite enough to differenti-

ate between these pieces.

But it can’t last, of

course. It took longer than

I expected for Read to

build a driving pulse into

“Bad Bunny,” but it’s quite

satisfying when she gets

there. What looks like

leafless birch trees placed

upstage (by set designer

Nick Bamford) goes largely

unrecognized until near

the end, when they begin

to traipse a path through

that forest. Like “Am-

monite,” there’s a sense of

connectivity with nature —

Smith’s two-dimensional

tip-toeing echoes Vaslav

Nijinsky in “The Afternoon

of a Faun,” while Gior-

danelli’s spritely leaps

bound her across the stage

like a gazelle. Each dancer

has his/her own motif,

which occasionally co-

alesces into unison duos or

trios. While they’re pretty

terrific performers on their

own, not every match-up

works.

I don’t know if Read had

the Puerto Rican Latin trap

singer in mind when she

made this piece. But Bad

Bunny got his stage name

from being forced to wear a

bunny costume as a child.

And the crux of “Bad

Bunny,” the dance, deals

with the topic of consent,

seen most clearly in the

middle of this piece. Smith

sits at Giordanelli’s feet,

tugging Giordanelli’s knees

out of alignment or slap-

ping her thighs. The lot of

them poke and prod at

Burns, who goes limp and

complacent as he’s moved

across the stage, pulled by

his hands and feet, flipped

over again and again. The

lack of synergy amongst

the cast may be the point,

though I wished that “Bad

Bunny’s” decidedly

dance-y moments had

really come to fruition.

Lauren Warnecke is a

freelance critic.

lauren.warnecke@

gmail.com

Director Joanna Read’s “Bad Bunny” was one of two premieres performed by Same Planet Performance Project.

VIN REED PHOTOS

IN PERFORMANCE

Mollusks, bunnies inspire

Same Planet premieres

By Lauren Warnecke

“Ammonite” was choreographed by Ivy Baldwin.